Cacti vs Smokeping
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Cacti
RRDtool-based network graphing and monitoring solution
VS
Smokeping
Latency measurement and network performance grapher
| Feature | Cacti | Smokeping |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | GPL-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | PHP | Perl |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, docker, source | bare-metal, docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,852 | ★ 1,938 |
| First released | 2001 | 2003 |
| Replaces | PRTG, SolarWinds | PRTG |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Cacti or Smokeping better?
Neither is universally better. Smokeping has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Cacti and Smokeping free and open-source?
Yes. Cacti is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Smokeping under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cacti and Smokeping with Docker?
Cacti: yes. Smokeping: yes.